Byrd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> fmetrol Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > There are those who claim an Egyptian inch.
> It's
> > generally met with some astonishment and
> disbelief
> > which is perfectly understandable but I
> guarantee
> > if you measure any batch of Egyptian
> artefacts you
> > will always find something that is
> sympathetic to
> > the foot rule.
>
> ...or the metric rule or nautical leagues or
> atomic units or Hong Kong's "fan" unit or the
> wavelength of various light colors. And you can
> compute ratios and proportions with them and come
> up with a standard ratio or proportion in any
> system.

That's true and here on this discussion board it's often referred to as "Anthony's bathroom" where almost any ratio you can think of has been unwittingly created by the builder who just went about his usual business of constructing a modern bathroom. We all understand the analogy even when it seems to be a flippant response to anyone who seriously tries to extract measurement from an ancient monument.

Egyptian measuring systems are still not fully understood and when the metrologist searches for patterns the wavelengths of light or the metrics of Louis XV are not usually in his tool kit. What he does have is a good knowledge of the British Imperial system, especially its structure for there are few systems of human induced measure that have better arithmetic, rhyme or reason. In fact it is possibly the only bag of tricks available to the metrologist who wishes to make comparisons with the more ancient systems of measure, in an effort to understand or to unravel their structure.

> However, this doesn't imply that it had any
> significance to the Egyptians. Our "stories" in
> multistoried buildings are generally 10 feet
> tall... but 10 doesn't have any specific special
> cultural meaning to us.

Only if we deny we have 10 fingers with which to count or that the sum of the numbers 1 - 10 equals the 10th number if the ancient Fibonacci series which in turn, when squared, is a meaningful number we can apply to the hand's width. Vitruvius was accused of knowing such things.

Graham